Edmonson seemed about to shout his answer, then, recollecting where he was, said with a passion more dreadful for its suppression, "Why? Because but for you I should be in paradise now, and by reason of you I am in----." Suddenly his speech was arrested by what seemed to him in its vividness a vision rather than a remembrance. He was again one of the gay carousers at the London inn, he was scoffing at Bulchester, and drinking that frightful pledge to meet them all again in one hundred years. Had he kept his appointment already? He would have a long while to wait. The act had seemed to him nothing, the recollection of it now made him shudder. All at once, the scene stood out to him in a lurid light, and through this he seemed to see a horror in Elizabeth Royal's face. For one moment the whirl of anguish and remorse blinded him. The next, that Archdale pride, so grand in a worthy cause, so fatal when in the hands of caprice and passion, was driving him on again. But as he was about to speak, the surgeon's voice by his bed commanded him to stop, for his own sake and for others. "Not another word," it said. "One,--I must speak one," returned Edmonson. "Then I have done, I promise you. Stand back and count off one minute." He leaned close to Harwin as the doctor yielded. "I give you a chance of honorable duel," he said. "You'll take it, or there's no place on earth where my sword is too short to reach you. You've taught me how to stab in the back; I shall not forget it. But I give you your chance. You'll fight?" "Yes." "Weapons?" "Swords." Edmonson smiled derisively. "You think my sword arm will not be strong enough?" he asked. "I shouldn't advise you to depend upon that. Time--when I am able. Place--we'll settle that afterward. We can't find seconds here--too much Puritanism; they would interfere. But we can arrange it; we're honorable men," he sneered. "I may depend upon you?" "Yes." "If not--beware! Now, surgeon, only one thing more," as Harwin left the tent. "How much have I hurt Mistress Royal?" "Lovell has gone with them. When he returns you shall hear." "You will certainly tell me?" "Certainly." "Then I have done with you to-night." And he threw himself back on his pillow, and lay silent and watchful until the other surgeon entered. Hours after, he fell into an uneasy sleep. Elizabeth's injury was slight. When she recovered from the shock and the faintness, she declared that there was no wound at all--that the ball had merely grazed her, and the report of the pistol and her fatigue had done the rest. "You always seem to be round sort of handy when we want anything," remarked Nancy to Archdale as she looked up from wiping the few drops of blood from Elizabeth's ear. "Half an inch to the left," said Stephen hastily, as he stood watching her, "and--"